Image – Guerrilla Gardening 15 December 2015: Brick Layers Arms, Southward London
Plants bring joy, and emotional wellbeing, and health to an urban area, but how to fit them in between the pavement and the buildings. Well, a little Guerrilla Gardening might solve the issue: Buckets of plants, replacing weed areas with flowers, creating moveable gardens of produce.
A friend had me make seed bombs for her to enhance the dead areas around her apartment building.
Related to this is urban agriculture, but guerrilla gardening is more about beautification than food insecurity. Either way – flower or food – it makes the world a better place.
I started TikTok this year, and with that I’ve been making a lot of book quote memes for Facebook to match the TikTok videos. Here is this year’s batch:
I recently stepped down as a Soil and Water Board member for my state. I ran for it because I believe more women should be on the ballot and I put my money where my mouth was (literally, did you know you have to pay to be put on the ballot?). I was rather shocked I won, but I finished serving my four years in the office.
My next political cause is getting minimum wage and tipped minimum wage raised a bit. For my state, $10 is the effective minimum wage – fast food can’t get people for less than that. So when I write letters, that is all I’m asking for. I’m writing a letter a week then personalizing them for my North Carolina House Representative, my NC Senate Legislator, my Federal NC House Representative, and my two Federal NC Senators. Plus I’m making a meme to post on Facebook.
Here is the pack so far:
And here are some political memes I’ve made previously, just in case you ever wonder where I stand on issues. Human Beings are Human Beings.
This year I fixed my lawn a bit. It really needed it and it took a lot of work.
I had a row of holes in the backyard where trees were removed before I moved here; the previous owner filled in the three holes with large rocks. What a fail! I removed the rocks and have slowly been adding soil to them every other year to get them level with the rest of the yard. They were the first of the issues, but after eight years of home ownership, things have gotten treacherous in other locations as well.
Mowing my lawn is a monthly challenge with a maze of tripping hazards.
The worst of the voles ankle-twisting areas. I think 20 bags of soil went here.
Voles have been attacking the front yard, leaving an ankle-twisting mess.
Along the sides of the house, dirt has disappeared somewhere. Plus other random holes that just develop over time.
So I bought dirt from various home improvement stores (bought out three stores) to level the yard during September and October. I got this neato leveling dirt tool which really sped things up – no raking and shoveling. Just dump a bag of dirt and zip back and forth for a while until all-flat. Toss some seed on top of it.
Total bags bought … 60! I think they weighed about 40 pounds on average. They are sold by volume. When wet, they weigh a lot more (and broke more easily – man, my van got muddy during this project). Basically I moved a ton of soil this fall. (60 * 40 = 2,400 pounds)
The grass is beginning to grow in. I’ll need to touch up on this going forward. I’m thinking about 10 bags a year for maintenance.
Along the front of the house where a lot of soil had disappeared. The fix has an added bonus in that the basement isn’t flooding as much.
And another side of the house taking four bags of soil.
